Default Encryption On Nexus 6 Brings Down Its Performance Significantly

Every smartphone has had its problems in the launch. Apple’s iPhone 6 was ridiculed for its design issues like BendGate and DyeGate, but the only line of smartphones that has kept its units perfect was Google’s Nexus. But with the launch of Nexus 6, Google might face rage of consumers because of performance issues.

Nexus 6 has some weird performance issues that come as a surprise considering the fact that it features the most powerful chipset currently available in the industry. Furthermore, it has 3GB RAM and it was specifically optimized by Google for Android 5.0 Lollipop. Also, it runs stock Android so the chance of having performance issues was thought be minimum.

So what’s causing the latest Nexus smartphone to hang for some a few seconds? Techies over at reddit and XDA suggested that the performance hit was due to the fact that Nexus 6 and other devices that come with Android 5.0 Lollipop had encryption enabled by default. This encryption would put a damper on read/write disks speeds, and would result in performance hiccups.

Users from AnandTech also had similar thoughts. To dig into the problem, they contacted Motorola to get their hands on a Nexus 6 that had encryption turned off. Their test confirmed that performance hit was really because Nexus 6 had encryption turned on by default, and it slowed down read/write disks speeds.

Their tests revealed that Nexus 6 with encryption enabled (as it comes out of box) showed 63% decline in read performance and 50% drop in write performance, as compared to the Nexus 6 with encryption disabled.

But the problem is not that it has encryption turned on, the problem is that you cannot turn it off.

Hence you can’t get the awesome performance that Moto X and Nexus 5 both being stock Android phones are delivering. Google has turned on the encryption at first boot to make the smartphone more secure. Different authorities have been raising voices to make encryption default on all devices, and Google is one of the first companies to make it possible.

However, it comes with a performance hit. AnandTech says that this is an overreaction to the idea that Android is not secure. Google, in an attempt to get rid of such allegations, has forcibly turned on encryption without thinking about the users. We hope that Google at least provides users with the option to turn it off if they want to.